We invite papers for possible inclusion in an anthology tentativelyentitled GLOBAL BABEL: INTERDISCIPLINARITY, TRANSNATIONALISM AND THE DISCOURSES OFGLOBALIZATION. The main focus of the anthology will be on the potential forinterdisciplinary, cross-cultural exchange of ideas and discourses toovercome barriers to mutual intelligibility among disciplines anddiscourses concerned with globalization. Do economists, non-governmentalorganizations (NGOs), antiglobalization activists, proponents oftransnational corporations, intellectual historians or other culturaltheorists always mean the same thing when they speak about globalization?If not, what are the points of incommensurability? Even if transculturalor interdisciplinary discourse is possible, what lingua franca can weelaborate? What shared forms of rationality can we articulate between andamong disciplines and cultures without falling into the trap ofEurocentric universalism?

We welcome papers no longer than 7500 words postmarked no later than March1, 2004 on topics including but not limited to the following topics, witha focus on whether we can imagine coherent discourses for theorizingthese issues, or elaborating problems that a variety of perspectives canengage creatively.

Institutions, Transnational exchange, and Power Differentials.What roles do institutions such as the World Bank, the InternationalMonetary Fund (IMF), Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs), the WorldTrade Organization, and environmental groups play in the generation,control, and dissemination of knowledge about globalization? How are thehorizons of this knowledge defined by the terms of a given discourse, andwhat constraints are there on the translation of these terms into otherdisciplines? What are the "real" effects of such epistemologicalfunctions? What are the consequences of the transnational exchange ofideas and information under globalization: exploitation or avenues ofresistance to cultural appropriation? How is power distributed underglobalization? What is the relative institutional power of the World Bank,the IMF, NGOs, Environmental groups, or labor unions to influence policyregulating transnational flows of goods and information and to define theterms of the debates about access to resources and institutions?

Activism and the Academy.What is the role of the academy in the geopolitics of the contemporaryperiod? Is the "university in ruins" complicit with transnationalcapitalism? To what extent can activist discourse generated in theacademy have a political role in the global public sphere?

Identities in Translation.What is the effect of globalization on the politics of immigration,cultural memory and national identity? How are subjectivities of bothimmigrants and hosts being transformed in the process of large-scaledemographic shifts as borders become more porous within the EuropeanUnion? What alternative identities and what imagined communities can weproject into the future to bring about more democratic civil societies?How are these identities in transition represented in art, film,performance and/or video, and how are these representations themselvesaffected by global economic flows?

Empire, Nationalism and Postnationalism.How should we talk across disciplines and across national borders aboutEmpire after the World Trade Center bombings of September 11, 2001 and theU.S. invasion of Iraq? How do formulations of Empire such as that ofHardt and Negri help us to talk about the Realpolitik of globalization? Inwhat ways is "empire" itself a disputed term? How is empire to bedistinguished from globalization, and if they are different the questionin a given situation may be: Whose "empire"?

Gender.In what discursive frames do defenders of sexual customs and rituals suchas female genital mutilation in non-Western cultures respond to challengesfrom proponents in the West of universal human rights and gender parity?How stable are the discursive categories of the body and even the ideas ofthe human body's integrity across cultures and disciplines today? How arediscourses of pleasure, desire, and criminality in gender relations beingconditioned by the age of transnational travel and the cross-bordertransmission of pornography or provocative images in advertising intoformerly insular cultures?

Conjunctures among Discourses of Technology, Business and Culture.What possibilities are there for meaningful collaboration between "thirdworld" nations and "first world" nations on moral and financial issuessuch as the international distribution of AIDS drugs and other medicines?In what ways do national corporate interests, as well as transnationalinstitutions, regulate and police the distribution of scientifictechnology and medical research? How are cultural differences produced orperpetuated in the process? How do we articulate an understanding offlows of transnational, "flexible" capital with libidinal and psychiceconomies?

Mass-Mediated Culture, Technologies of Globalization, and the Cultures ofCosmopolitanism.How are we to understand the circulation of discourses and ideologies intransnational circuits? How do we thematize the desirability of aplurality of forms of rationality, religion, secularism--in short,difference--as an alternative to the thesis of the "conflict ofcivilizations" taken by some to be imminent? What can we say about thecultures of cosmopolitanism in the context of technologies that furtherthe processes of globalization or that advance the interests ofmultinational or transnational corporations (TNCs) to the disadvantage oflocal cultures in the developing world?

Please send proposals by November 1, 2003 or, preferably, finished papersby March 1, 2004, to Margueritte Murphy at mmurph2_at_bentley.edu and SamirDayal at sdayal_at_bentley.edu. Hard copies of both proposals and finishedpapers may be sent to The English Department, Bentley College, Waltham MA,02452-4705, USA.